


Life magazine.

by orange_crushed



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s09e01 I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 09, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 01:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tell you something,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to go there.” Her face goes blank and surprised, soft somehow. Younger even, than the kid she’s wearing.</p><p>“You know my canyon?”</p><p>“Everybody knows your canyon,” he says. “It’s like, a  wonder of the friggin' world.” </p><p> </p><p>(<i>AU for season 9, episode 1</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life magazine.

When they get back to the bunker there’s a girl on the couch in the rec room, sitting cross-legged and reading an ancient issue of LIFE magazine from the stacks. There’s a woman on the cover in a white dress. It takes Dean a second to realize he’s looking at a photograph of Queen Elizabeth in her twenties. He clears his throat and the girl looks up, startled but not fearful. She stares at him levelly like-

-oh, _shit_.

“Cas?” Dean calls, into the echo of the hall. “Castiel!” He goes down the stairs fast, starts to think about the knife inside his jacket- and then there he is. There he is, coming out of the hall, wet hair and a towel in his hands and some ugly maroon hoodie clinging to him, looking like he’s been beat up and rolled around for a couple of days, which he probably has. God almighty. Dean thinks about what to say while his body just hurtles him closer on instinct. Cas has about three seconds to process him coming forward and then there’s just a soft _oof_ from both of them as Dean slams into him, wraps his arms around his shoulder, puts his chin over Castiel’s collarbone. “Shit,” says Dean. He hugs harder. “ _Cas_ ,” he says. Cas feels good, warm like he just got out of the shower. He’s a little damp and he smells like Sam’s flowery lady shampoo. Cas drops the towel and slides his hands around Dean’s back and lets them sit there, palms pressed into Dean’s spine.

“Hello,” he says, barely audible, into Dean’s ear. Dean squeezes him and pats his back and then breaks away, holds him at arm’s length to look at him. He looks tired. His face is scratched and there’s a cut along the line of his scalp, clean now but still fresh. Obviously, there’s somebody Dean needs to kill. “You’re back,” he says. “Is Sam-“

“I’m good,” Sam says, from the top of the stairs. He smiles down, looking genuinely pleased. Dean tries not to feel like a massive pile of shit for like, one second, about the Sam-plus-one situation. He’ll deal with it soon. He has to. “Hey, Cas.” And finally Cas stops making a grim, guilty face like Dean’s about to take him to a funeral, and he just straight-up starts beaming at Dean, at Sam, at the girl on the sofa, who looks mightily unimpressed.

“You’re all here,” he says. “Safely returned.” He looks at Dean. “I’m glad.” Dean tries really hard not hug him again. It almost works: he just ends up squeezing Cas’s arms, then lets him go. His hands clench, empty, for a second afterwards. “Dean. Sam. This is- this is my sister. Hael.” She inclines her head a little.

“You guys run into some trouble?” Dean asks, nodding at Cas’s face. Cas grimaces and starts to open his mouth, but it’s Hael who speaks.

“Our brother, Abiel,” she says. “He was still quite- angry.” Dean looks at Cas, who nods, and looks incredibly depressed for a second. 

“He blamed me for everything that’s happened,” says Cas. His shoulders actually slump down, his eyes go dull. It’s fucking awful. “I don’t know that he was far from the truth.”

“Hey, hey,” Dean says. “No. This is not on you. You got played. That bookwormy shitbag used you. Cas.” He leans down, meets Cas’s eyes and tries to get ‘em back up, somewhere above the international southern borderline of despair. “Look at me. This is not on you.” Castiel nods. His eyes are still broadcasting misery, but at least he’s looking at Dean like he doesn’t think Dean is _completely_ full of shit. “So you’re, uh- you’re-“

“Human,” says Cas, hollowly. He lifts his hands up a little, like a really deep shrug. 

“It’s not all bad,” Sam says, from behind Dean. It’s really gentle, softly said, classic Sam, and Cas looks up.

“No,” he says. “It isn’t. I know that. There are many things- I’ve told Hael, this world has many benefits. Many reasons to- many possibilities.” He looks over at his sister. He’s smiling at her and she’s smiling a little bit back at him, but Dean wonders if she isn’t just humoring him. There’s a cold sadness in her eyes. Cas is still babbling at Sam about human freedoms, but Dean takes a second to walk over to the couch and lean down against the back of the seat.

“So,” he says. “You’re stuck here.”

“I’m not stuck,” she says: flatly, reflexively. “I came with Castiel of my own free will because he-“ Dean raises an eyebrow, and she stops talking.

“Go ahead,” he says.

“He promised me something.” She looks down at the magazine in her hands. “He promised to show me something.”

“Let me guess,” Dean says. “The wonders of diner food.”

“No.” For the first time, her voice goes small and sad. She’s like a girl, then: like a person. Not exactly like an angel anymore. “A grand canyon.” Dean ponders that for a second before it clicks.

“ _The_ grand canyon?” Hael nods. “Wow. Heavenly tourism.”

“I made it,” Hael says, with a flare of anger. No, Dean thinks. Not anger. It’s more like pride “I carved it from the earth, scooped it out with my-“ she stops, and looks down at her palms, curls her fingers into them. “With my hands.” She shakes her head. “They were more, then. I was- more.”

“Seriously?” Dean asks. “That’s kind of amazing.” She looks back up at him. “Tell you something,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to go there.” Her face goes blank and surprised, soft somehow. Younger even, than the kid she’s wearing.

“You know my canyon?”

“Everybody knows your canyon,” he says. “It’s like, a wonder of the friggin' world.” And then Dean gets an idea. He gets up and goes to the magazine racks, digs through some yellowing LIFE magazines and some financial times crap and even a couple of Better Homes and Gardens. And then he finds the jackpot: a whole bunch of National Geographics, dozens of them, stiff and brittle when he turns the pages, but still glossy, still full of saturated pictures of forests and mountains and lakes and wildlife and all kinds of stuff. He sits on the floor and starts flipping through them and then he feels a hand on his shoulder. Cas. He looks up into Cas’s concerned face. “Gotta find something,” Dean says. Cas sits down beside him and Dean keeps flipping through page after page of gorillas and giraffes and villagers and old dead presidents. And then he finds it. It’s a huge photo across two pages, a vivid splash of reds and golds in technicolor. Taken at sunset, probably from a helicopter. Sweet. “Here you go,” Dean says, and scoots over to unfold the magazine in Hael’s lap. “There it is. Look familiar?” She stares down into the picture and her hands trace the edges of the page.

“There are so many people,” she says, awed, and Dean can see them now, gathered like ants along the canyon rim. Hundreds of tourists taking pictures, couples with their arms around each other, kids trying to lean as close as they can without getting hollered at. Hael runs her finger over their tiny forms, and then along the seam of the canyon itself. She doesn’t look like she’s breathing- and then she exhales, long and slow and shaky, and looks at Dean with something like wonder in her eyes. She’s seeing something for the first time, he realizes. “Humans,” she says. “You- you have enjoyed it.”

“That’s an understatement,” Sam says. “Some people wait a lifetime to see it.”

“I thank you,” Hael says, still looking at Dean. “I thank you for this.”

Dean realizes that Cas is still sitting beside him when he feels Cas’s hand slip under his sleeve, to go around his wrist. Cas’s fingers rest there, against Dean’s pulse, and they squeeze a little, then relax. 

“Welcome to the club,” says Dean.

 

.


End file.
